OWabi
by Michiru's Mirror
Summary: Just why didn't Kakashi and Sakura meet up during the time skip?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Naruto and all characters herein do NOT belong to me.

Warnings: Nothing in particular, just a few swear words. Takes place during the time skip.

O-Wabi

Chapter One

Kakashi hated it when things got quiet around Konoha for long periods of time.

True, he was not an overly social person. A loner by choice, Kakashi always enjoyed the bits of downtime he got every few months. It was nice to sit down, grab some sake, and read old favorite volumes of Icha Icha cover to cover without kunai flying by his head or a punch coming for his gut. It was so nice, in fact, that Kakashi had once asked for a longer break after he had once broken a few ribs in a fight. A week had been granted, as he was hurt and work around Konoha a bit lax that month.

The first three days had been pornography-filled bliss, and the last four a nerve-wracking nightmare. Not since the age of eight had be gone so long without being attacked. He found himself sneaking behind trees waiting for ambushes that didn't exist and waking up under his bed where his paranoid sleeping body had rolled for protection against nothing. Worst of all, he couldn't concentrate on Icha Icha! Even his favorite, often re-read scene of three young kunoichi seducing the hero and then taking turns with him (and then going all together...and then going with each other...and then taking turns with him again...) was impossible to focus on. Kakashi had been horrified. If three nubile, heated begging young things like that couldn't hold his attention, he might as well just give up calling himself a man.

He had never requested extra time off again. Quiet, it seemed, did not suit him. It made him spend all his energy fretting like a caged hamster over just when things would get loud again.

...Like the quiet of this building was doing to him now.

When Shizune had come to his apartment early that morning and told him "Tsunade-sama would like to see you this afternoon at 2 p.m." he'd felt a sudden, strong nervous jolt in his stomach. Something was wrong, so wrong that he'd even bothered to show up on time (it was barely 2:30 now) to see what the matter was. He reached the fifth Hokage's office, knocked on the door, waited for her commanding voice to call "enter," and obeyed.

"You wanted to see me?"

Tsunade smiled at him from behind her desk in a way that made his testicles shrivel up and his insides try to burrow deeper inside of him to escape (though as usual, no emotion showed on his face). It was a cutesy, sugary-sweet simper; the kind she used when she was so enraged whoever had provoked her was about three seconds from becoming a smear on her knuckle. "Ah, yes. I have a few questions for you about Sakura."

Kakashi's squirming insides froze. "Is she hurt?"

A frighteningly girlish giggle. "Oh no, nothing like that." Relief helped alleviate his tension for the merest second until the Hokage went on. "In fact, she's doing quite brilliantly under my tutelage. When you said she had guts, brains, and ability you weren't kidding."

Nervous, confused and internally squirming though he was, Kakashi couldn't prevent a small iota of pride from making itself known. "Yes, Hokage-sama. She's quite special."

"Indeed!" Said Tsunade, rising from her chair and moving to the side of her ridiculously paper-laden desk. She leaned on it and picked up a mug of coffee leaning precariously on the desks corner, still wearing that creepy smile that made him want to bolt out the door. "She's quite fond of you as well." Another iota of pride. "Talks about you all the time, you and those other boys you trained." A pause, and suddenly the smile vanished from her face. "Which made me wonder," said Tsunade in an abruptly icy voice. "With all her talent, and all her respect, and all her potential, why is it that I found myself at first having to teach her basic techniques that she should have learned from you almost a year ago?"

...Ah.

Knowing he wasn't "dead" so much as "DEAD" if he answered unsatisfactorily, Kakashi cleared his throat and said "I suppose you're just a better teacher than me."

A crack as the coffee mug shattered in Tsunade's grip, sending hot liquid gushing over her hand. "Do not try to get out of this by sucking up to me, don't you dare," she hissed. "I want to know why this girl seems to have spent a year in your care without learning a goddamn thing, I want to know now, and if you try to insult my intelligence like that again you'll be scrubbing floors for the next year."

Kakashi took a deep breath and tried again, leaving his arms limp at his sides and keeping his face as relaxed as ever. He didn't want to look aggressive or defensive. "Sakura is brilliant, talented and courageous, but until recently she was a bit unmotivated. Trying to get her to train was rather like trying to get Jiraya-sama to write, oh, a gay love story. That is, I'm sure he could, but good luck convincing him."

That sugary smile was back, which made Kakashi sure he'd given the wrong answer. "Pardon me if I'm wrong, but isn't it your job as her teacher to motivate her? Chouji is unmotivated, but still seems to have learned his basics from Asuma."

"Well, yes, I suppose so. But--"

Tsunade held her up coffee-stained hand for silence, still smiling. "And, you know, she was telling me the most interesting stories the other day! About how when you were teaching them to climb trees, she mastered the technique first...and then, instead of following up or using her _motivation_--" Tsunade put such heavy emphasis on the word 'motivation' that Kakashi winced "--to teach her anything further, she says you had her lazing about, not training at all while you focused on Naruto and Sasuke."

Kakashi had never in his life felt so wrong-footed. For a start there was the enraged woman a second away from murdering him, but Kakashi was also wondering if Sakura had told that story because she was proud of having finished first, or angry at him for not training her further. "Well, yes, because she'd mastered the technique she didn't need any further--"

"Or her story about the chuunin exam!" Tsunade simpered so loudly that Kakashi fell silent at once. "It seems her teammates fell and she had to protect them. She failed, but proudly told me how she had gained a new insight, a new motivation, a new willingness to learn. And then, gosh-darn it, you went and disappeared for a month!"

Oh no, she wasn't blaming him for that one. "Neither Sakura nor Naruto was in any immediate danger, Hokage-sama." Kakashi's voice was still level, his voice still betraying no hint of emotion. "But Sasuke's life was. I had to focus on him to save his life."

"Without making a single plan or leaving a single message about training in your absence. Leaving Sakura languishing and useless yet again, leaving her to convince herself that her newfound sense of purpose was a delusion and only her sense of worthlessness was real." Tsunade's smile widened until it almost split her face. "Wow, Kakashi, I've never heard of such teaching!" She giggled in such an obviously sarcastic way that Kakashi felt sick, suddenly wrong-footed again. Why hadn't he left behind a training regimen? Both his remaining students could have used it.

Now having to work to keep his expression cool, Kakashi tried to sound sure of his answer. "It's not...Sakura had a tendency to hide from fights," he tried. "We fought Zabuza and she hung back and squeaked...I'd ask her her goals and she'd talk about crushes and giggle. Hell, if she got hit, she'd _cry_."

"Shut up." Even if Kakashi hadn't been looking at her face, he would have been able to tell from Tsunade's iron voice that her smile had disappeared. He shut up.

"Here's what I understand. You were assigned Sakura, given the duty to train and prepare her. And instead, you gave up on her. You shoved her aside, didn't give her the skills she needed, didn't show her what she needed to know, and then SHOVED HER INTO LIVE COMBAT!" Tsunade's voice rose with every word until Kakashi was surprised that the windows behind her didn't shatter from the force of her voice.

"What the hell is the matter with you? Do you just not like this girl?"

Kakashi's shame and embarrassment turned to anger as quickly as Tsunade's smile had slipped off of her face. Like her? How could Tsunade even suggest that his students didn't mean the world to him, let alone that he might have purposely hurt one of them! "I've done the best I can with what I've been given." Not a man given to shouting, there was still a noticeable tremor in Kakashi's voice. "I was assigned a demon-possessed idiot, a traumatized lunatic and a confidence-impaired bimbo and told to make them into ninja overnight and goddamnit I _did my best_." Kakashi would later deeply regret speaking of his students in such a condescending way, but the humiliation and rage in him had made him cruel. Tsunade was voicing everything he'd yelled at himself over the past months, and he could actually feel sweat beading his brow. How dare she!

But now Tsunade was studying his face as though looking at some loathsome piece of mold growing on her shower floor. She was silent for several long seconds before saying in her quietest, deadliest voice: "The really astounding thing is how much Sakura admires you." Her voice was so laced with disgust that she might have been talking about Orochimaru.

Then she said, "Get out of my office." Kakashi went.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: answering the questions 1) Why didn't Kakashi and Sakura meet during the time skip? and 2) Why does Kakashi seem to ignore Sakura?   
Kakashi is a little OOC, but I don't think we've ever seen him really put under the gun before like Tsunade just did, so this is just my interpretation of how he'd act. :)

An O-Wabi is an apology; when you've done something wrong, you bring a small gift to the person you've wronged, and that gift is an "o-wabi," though the word can also be used to just mean "apology".

Criticism about writing style, characterization, grammar, etc is VERY welcome. Fire away.


	2. Chapter 2

Warning: A few swear words in this chapter. Enjoy!

**O-Wabi**

**Chapter 2**

Guy Might was worried.

A week before, in accordance with his monthly custom, he was having his teeth bleached. His dentist warned him that if he kept doing so he was going to bleach right through the enamel, but as the thought of Rock Lee having a shinier smile then he drove him to despair, the monthly bleachings continued.

He had just emerged from the dentist's office grinning proudly and blinding an old lady crossing his path, when who should pass him from the direction of the Fifth Hokage's office but his Esteemed Rival!

"AH-HAH!" Guy had roared, dropping into his Challenge Pose (legs akimbo, one arm clenched to his side, the other thrust out to point at the challenged party). "You've come to envy my BRILLIANT NEW SMILE!"

It was at this point Guy realized that Kakashi had walked right past him without a word. Giving a squeak like a mouse being trodden on, Guy came out of his Challenge Pose with a hop and did his best to scoot after Kakashi's retreating back without doing anything as undignified as scooting. "Ah, a RISKY PLOY, my RIVAL! But as you see, I'll not be IGNORED!"

Perhaps Kakashi had seen that Guy really wouldn't be ignored, or perhaps he couldn't think of what else to do. Whatever the case, Kakashi had lifted his head, stuck his face so close to Guy's that Guy could feel his breath even through the other mans mask, and said "Not. Now."

The stunned Guy had stood in the middle of the street gaping until Kakashi had disappeared from sight.

Shizune made sure to wait for a few days before bringing up the scene Tsunade had made in her office with Kakashi. Not that Shizune was afraid of Tsunade. Though Tsunade in a rage could be alarming, Shizune trusted Tsunade's love for her would keep the older woman from doing her any real harm. No, rather it was common sense regarding Tsunade's moods that kept Shizune temporarily quiet. Tsunade was mildly stubborn in the way that Jiraya was mildly perverted, and to try and talk sense into her when she was in a full-on ball-stomping rage would not only not work, it would only increase the Hokage's anger and double the time it took her to calm down. So, though it pained Shizune to stand outside and listen to poor Kakashi getting chewed out, she knew better than to interfere. She did her part later: when Tsunade came storming out minutes after Kakashi's departure demanding that Kakashi be permanently transferred to some far distant place cleaning toilets, Shizune had quietly "lost" the necessary paperwork.

It was taking Tsunade an unusually long time to calm down though—she was really angry, angry like Shizune hadn't seen since Tsunade had been approached by Orochimaru and that glasses-wearing sycophant he kept around. Shizune couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the strength of the affection this showed for Sakura, but Shizune brushed such childish feelings aside as best she could. True, she had been Tsunade's sole means of emotional support for a long time, and had become accustomed to the role. That role had made her important and special in a way she just wasn't now. However, Tsunade's love for Sakura did not diminish her love for Shizune, and Shizune knew her duty as a citizen of Konoha, as an apprentice, and as Tsunade's friend. That duty was far more important than Shizune's own petty internal tantrums.

It was perhaps a week later that Shizune judged it "safe" to approach Tsunade. With a conciliatory offering of chocolate cake and sweet tea, Shizune knocked on Tsunade's door and entered.

"I know you're too busy to take a _real_ break, but I thought you might have time for a mini-break." Shizune said cheerfully as she set down the tray she was carrying everything on. The Hokage's private office was, as usual, a mess. There were file cabinets that didn't close for all the files stuffed in them, chairs which couldn't be sit on for all the files sitting on them, and a desk with a Hokage that couldn't be seen behind it for all the files sitting in front of her. Shizune had to settle for putting only the edge of the tray down on the side of Tsunade's desk and balancing the rest on her left hip.

Tsunade gave a great sigh and solved the space problem by sweeping a large quantity of papers right off her desk with a large flourish. "Best idea I've heard all day. You should see some of this bullshit, Shizune. I have a guy here requesting a ninja to help him with his rodent problem. I think the rats must have burrowed into his head. Why the hell can't he just call an exterminator if he has the money to hire a shinobi?"

"Well," said Shizune in a tone used for lecturing stubborn children, particularly dense people, or Naruto, "his great Aunt Noriko was killed by an exterminator and he swore revenge. He's going to drive all exterminators out of business."

Tsunade started to laugh, stopped, and said "Oh my God, around this place that might be true."

For about ten minutes to two women ate cake and speculated on possible reasons a man might grow wary of exterminators. They had just reached the possibility of an unrequited crush when Shizune decided to get down to business.

"By the way, Tsunade-sama," she said as though she'd just remembered something of no great importance. "I finally found those silly transferal forms. Do you still want me to move Kakashi-sensei to—"

Tsunade's face had switched from open and smiling to murderous so quickly it was as though she'd put on a mask. "Transfer him."

Shizune gave a mental sigh of exasperation. Still angry then. "Well, of course it's up to you. But the thing is…well, I was talking to Sakura-chan the other day." Which was true. "And she began telling me this adorable story about how she'd once fallen and gotten this horrible scrape on her knee during training. She'd cried and cried and Kakashi had been so sweet and bandaged her up and spent the night cheering her up and…and what a good man he was to have done that." Which was not true. But Shizune was hoping that a sappy made up story that made Kakashi look good might show Tsunade the _real_ good points that the man possessed.

Tsunade, however, didn't quite seem to buy it. "And did he give her a ride back to Konoha on his white horse, too?"

Shizune took a sip of tea to cover her grimace. Damn, the lady was good. (That perhaps the pitiful quality of her own lie might have given Shizune's story away did not occur to her.) "Oh all right, I lied. But I really don't think Sakura-chan would be very happy if we sent Kakashi-sensei away. She's lost both her teammates so recently. Aside from Ino-chan, Kakashi-sensei is really the only close friend she has left."

"She doesn't need a close friend who treats her as though she's useless."

"Of course not." Shizune straightened in her chair, her gaze directly meeting that of her teacher. "But I see two possibilities here. One: Kakashi-sensei saw Sakura-chan's girliness, threw up his hands in defeat, and shunted her out of the way. Two: Sakura-chan thought badly of _herself_, so he took it easy on her."

"Both make him a bad instructor," Tsunade stubbornly insisted. "Just the thought of Sakura in the middle of flying jutsu and weaponry, unable to defend herself—! Whether it was from pseudo-kindness or plain old arrogance, it still makes him a shitty teacher."

Shizune smiled. "But not a shitty friend."

Tsunade paused, her mouth open to retort, and then frowned. Privately, Shizune was not convinced that Kakashi was even all that bad an instructor. Kakashi had been assigned to teach three inexperienced children how to fight properly. Being handed a girl who was even girly by girl standards, who talked about crushes and nail polish over techniques and weapons and whose total lack of confidence in herself lead her to avoid anything resembling a dangerous situation couldn't have been anything but a headache for a man who had never taken more then two minutes on his appearance in his life. Shizune was suspicious of Kakashi as well, and was not convinced he had done as much as he should have to motivate Sakura. But this was far from a certainty, and Sakura herself had never said a negative word against him.

However, Shizune knew better than to press the point. Getting Tsunade to reconsider even a tiny portion of her judgment about anything was a miracle in itself. If she tried to make Tsunade revise _all_ of her opinion, the older lady might revert back just to appease her own pride. Shizune knew that Tsunade, if left alone, would privately think over what she'd been told. So Shizune said: "By the way, Shikamaru-kun is in the east wing of the hospital again. He apparently got into a scuffle with Kiba-kun, and Akamaru almost chewed his arm off. It's quite a sight."

Tsunade visibly relaxed and nodded her head, gratefully walking through the escape door Shizune had just provided her ego. "I'll have to take a look at him then."

AUTHORS NOTES:

A huge thank you to every single one of you who took the time to review this. I appreciate it more than I can say, and I hope this chapter lives up to any expectations. If it doesn't, by all means tell me how and why so I can improve next time.

A few people asked me where this story was going. I, personally, am interested in writing different kinds of stories with different themes. This story is a pure character piece—all dialogue and character development. The story that's going to come after this one is my plot piece with romance and action. I hope you enjoy.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Naruto ain't mine. Damn.

**O-Wabi**

**Chapter Three**

Kakashi hadn't felt this miserable since he'd run out of new _Icha Icha_ books to read. It wouldn't have been so bad if Tsunade had been chewing him out for no reason. He'd been chewed out before by, oh, just about everyone: his peers, his students, various one-night stands, his teacher, his family before they died, his barber, the lady at the local soba shop… Kakashi knew he was just the kind of guy who got under people's skin sometimes. His rapier wit, devastatingly good looks and impressive book collection just inspired too much envy for it to be otherwise.

The problem with this situation was that, well, Tsunade had a point. Couldn't he have done more for a girl who had entrusted her life and future to him? When Sakura had aced tree climbing, why hadn't he given her more advanced exercises? When she had put herself bodily in-between Naruto and Sasuke to keep them from killing each other that horrible day on the hospital roof, why had Kakashi just patted her on the head like a puppy instead of showing her ways to help without killing herself? The mistakes he'd made were clear, and he couldn't even say it was just inexperience as a teacher that had led him to make them. If it were the fault of inexperience, that wouldn't be so bad. Sakura was alive after all, and he could start giving her training now to make up for it.

No, the really disturbing part was Tsunade's other accusation: "Do you just not like this girl?" Hearing that was like being punched in the gut. It wasn't true, couldn't be, that his own bias against Sakura's personality had influenced how he'd trained her could it? But if it wasn't true, then why had so she eagerly gone looking for a new teacher the second her teammates had left? Was it just because Tsunade was stronger and more experienced than he, or because she couldn't bear to be around Kakashi and his apparently awful treatment of her any longer?

Lacking any answer Kakashi did the most manly, courageous thing he could think of and went out of his way to avoid the problem. He came across Sakura three times in the week following Tsunade's big blowup. The first time, he'd held _Icha Icha Violence_ up so close to his face that he couldn't read the words, let alone see Sakura. This worked, though he unfortunately failed to see the pole he ran into as well. The second time he turned to a random woman next to him and pretended to be deep in conversation with her. The third time, with no book or people around to hide behind, Kakashi had done a kind of pirouette to turn down a side alley.

Avoiding Sakura was difficult enough, but the entire situation was made worse because Kakashi was now being besieged everywhere he went by Guy Might. His self-proclaimed rival seemed to have decided that Kakashi needed to be treated with the delicacy of a terminally ill cancer patient and was doing his best to show up wherever the Copy Ninja was. Kakashi couldn't turn a corner without being blinded by that disturbing smile and an unnaturally gentle "are you all right, my most esteemed and honored friend?" It made Kakashi long for Guy to start yelling challenges at him again, but apparently the Beautiful Beast had decided it was his manly duty to rescue Kakashi from his own depression.

Not generally a man who let himself wallow in negative thoughts, Kakashi had decided to start avoiding Guy too in the hope that the other man's constant love of new challenges would carry his thoughts away from him in time. The best way to do this would be to go on a mission, but when Kakashi tried to approach the Hokage's office he had been intercepted by a horrified Shizune who had told him in no uncertain terms that he should stay away from Tsunade for the next few days. So it was back to his apartment where there was no escape from his dark thoughts. Great.

He was not given long to wallow, however, because Sakura showed up on his doorstep before the second day of his semi self-imposed house arrest was over.

Kakashi was sitting on his beat-up and very comfortable couch flipping through TV channels and contemplating taking a nap when there was a knock at the door. Scowling, Kakashi lifted himself off of his couch, crossed his room, and pulled open the door. There stood Sakura in the doorway. Her huddled pose suggested that she'd just broken something priceless and was waiting to be murdered.

Kakashi's first impulse was to shut the door rather than bear that look. Before he could Sakura had stuck a small wrapped gift inside the door.

"I'm sorry!" She cried.

Kakashi blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he said, "What?" Wasn't this backwards?

Sakura looked up from the deeply apologetic bow she had sunk into. "Aren't…aren't you mad at me? You've been avoiding me for over a week!"

Well shit. Kakashi gave a deep internal groan. By not paying attention to Sakura he seemed to have messed things up again. There went the running and hiding plan. But he couldn't invite her in, could he? If Tsunade found out he'd been alone in his apartment with Sakura she'd throw a fit. He was in enough trouble already, thank you very much.

Kakashi steeled himself and said, "c'mon, let's go to that new _yakiniku_ place near Ichiraku. I'm hungry." He was, too. With his exhaustion completely dispelled by nerves he realized just how hungry he was. He hadn't been eating properly since this whole mess began. Besides, walking over there would buy some time while he tried to figure out what to do.

Without looking at his companion Kakashi stepped outside, fumbled for his key, realized he'd forgotten it inside, ran in to get it and locked his door. He set off down the street and made no allowance for Sakura's shorter legs. He knew she'd be keeping up, because he was just unlucky that way. What the hell was he supposed to say to her? I'm not mad at you; I'm just ashamed for screwing up your training? Sorry I'm such a shitty teacher you had to find a new one? This was worse than trying to comfort Guy after Lee had been flattened in the _chuunin_ exam.

They reached the restaurant and there was no more hiding possible, so Kakashi did the next best thing and sat in silence. The nameless restaurant was thankfully not a _tachigui_, but it was the next lowest form of eatery with a dirty floor and almost no room. Kakashi realized he'd been hoping that the place would be packed so that there'd be too much noise for a proper conversation. Unfortunately, in the middle of the afternoon the place was nearly empty and Kakashi was left to grow more and more uncomfortable as he tried to think of something to say. Sakura was no more at ease; she shifted around in her seat and looked everywhere in the tiny excuse for a restaurant except at her former teacher.

Kakashi badly wanted to break the silence but it was Sakura who finally did by pushing her little apology gift across the table towards him. Kakashi shook his head and pushed it back. "You've got nothing to apologize for."

"No?" Sakura looked at him with such a childishly hopeful look in her eyes that Kakashi felt like hitting himself for making her feel so bad. "Really? Because I've been thinking about why you've been pirouetting into dead-end alleys rather than look at my face and…and it goes back to when I became Tsunade-sama's apprentice. So I thought maybe it's _because_ I became Tsunade-sama's apprentice? I mean, if I were a teacher and my student suddenly tossed me aside for another teacher, that would feel really crappy."

What a gift with words she had. Kakashi found himself grinning slightly under his mask at Sakura's total lack of eloquence.

Sakura took heart at the grin and plowed on. "So I wanted to explain why I left at least! That it wasn't you being a bad teacher or that I didn't like you or anything."

Kakashi finally found his voice. Even if Sakura was giving it for the wrong reason, this was reassurance he wanted to hear. "No?" He asked simply, his face in no way betraying any emotion as usual. To Sakura, he looked like the same lackadaisical man he always had.

Sakura shook her head vigorously, pink hair flying in all directions. "No way! You've always been great to me! I always felt like, when you and Sasuke-kun and Naruto were around, I'd be safe. Y'know…protected. Taken care of. Wherever I was, or whoever we—well, you—were fighting, it didn't matter 'cause I'd be all right." She stopped talking to grin at him for a minute, and he grinned back. Her smile was infectious as always. Though Kakashi couldn't bring himself to put his relief into words, he was relieved that she wasn't hostile towards him.

Sakura abruptly stopped grinning and looked down at her lap. "But it's not about me. In the _chuunin_ exam everybody got hurt and 'cause I was depending on them to save me, I couldn't help them. And then Gaara used me to bait Naruto and I wasn't strong enough and that put Naruto in danger, and then I couldn't stop Sasuke-kun from leaving…" To Kakashi's utter horror he saw that Sakura's lower lip had begun to tremble. _Oh please don't cry_, he thought, almost panicking. _Oh please, not here in public._

Fortunately a significant distraction arrived in the form of their food. Breathing thanks to the almighty first Hokage for the miracle of good timing, Kakashi pulled down his mask long enough to take a bite and then pulled it back up. Sakura was still distressed enough that she didn't notice. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down before taking a bite and continuing her monologue.

"So, I realized how much I'd…I'd _enjoyed_ being dependant." It obviously cost Sakura a lot to admit this; she turned bright red and twisted her hands in her lap so hard Kakashi was surprised he couldn't hear a squeaking noise. "Oh that's so pathetic."

Given that her words had to do with her shortcomings rather than his own, Kakashi found it easier to find something to say. "Of course it's not. All humans want to be taken care of."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "All girls."

"No, men too."

Sakura looked confused. "What? But boys get ticked off if you try to coddle them."

Kakashi snorted. "In a fight. But what do you think the point of having a housewife is? At the end of the day a man wants to go home and let his woman take care of him. Cooking someone's food and looking after his needs is a different area from body guarding, but it's still taking care of someone." Kakashi sighed. "Believe me, figuring out that most of the women in this village will punch me out before making my dinner was a bitter pill to swallow. And you may _never_ tell anyone I just said that." He could already imagine the beating Anko would give him if she ever heard what he'd said.

Sakura giggled and looked down (Kakashi used the opportunity to take another bite of his meal) studying her hands and apparently thinking over what he'd said. "Well okay. Not pathetic, but still impossible right?"

She looked up at him with a tiny glimmer of hope in her bright green eyes, but Kakashi wasn't going to lie to her about something so crucial. "In our profession? Yeah."

The hopeful glimmer died, but Sakura rallied herself almost immediately. "Right. Well if I liked being dependant, I hated being useless! My teammates lives are just more important than the swoopy fluttery feeling being rescued by Saskue-kun gave me." Kakashi nodded his agreement and waited for her to go on. After looking at her lap for a moment (Kakashi took another bite) and taking a deep breath, she did.

"So now do you see why I had to go to Tsunade-sama?" Sakura bit her lip and the pleading expression was back. "You're so nice to me and so forgiving and make me feel so safe that I just never…I'm lazy, Kakashi-sensei! If someone isn't pushing me I won't go and I have to go! There's no other way now. Sasuke-kun and Naruto are going to die if I don't. It just can't be about me anymore." Sakura gave a chuckle that was so miserably bitter that Kakashi almost felt his own heart break. "Not that it ever was, but now I can't even pretend. Your guys' lives are just too important." She blushed as she said so, but didn't look away from Kakashi's face this time.

Kakashi wasn't sure whether to feel more proud of her or ashamed of himself. Had this strong, compassionate and well on her way to becoming capable girl always been underneath the whiny, selfish, useless Sakura he'd thought he'd known? Had she just needed the right mentor to show her the way?

_You didn't believe yourself to be worthy_, Kakashi thought. _Sakura, you gave up on yourself before you even began and so I gave up on you too. But if you have the balls to shake off your deepest fantasies and your unworthy mentor and the compassion to come and find that old, stupid, unworthy mentor and comfort him even if he doesn't deserve it, then you more deserve to be a _shinobi_ than anyone I've met since Obito._

_Can you even begin to understand how brilliantly you're going to shine?_

_…If I don't get in your way._

Kakashi wanted to tell her all these things, but couldn't find the words. Instead, all he could do was take her apology gift from the table and place it firmly in front of her. "Don't apologize to me for acting to protect the lives of my students. I have been drilling you since day one to do exactly that." _But thank you for coming to comfort me._

Sakura broke into a brilliant smile that lit up her entire face and such relief shone in her eyes that Kakashi found himself smiling back and reaching over the table to pat her on the head. It was horribly condescending and he'd sworn to himself not two seconds ago that he wouldn't do that anymore, but she was just so adorable he couldn't help himself.

From the way Sakura smiled wider, it seemed she didn't mind.

Tsunade was not as forgiving as Sakura. Shizune's advice saved the Copy Ninja from a lifetime of hauling dirt piles back and forth, but couldn't quite change Tsunade's mind that Kakashi might be better off away from Sakura while the girl trained. Kakashi agreed, and did not fight when the Hokage began to post him on many distant missions. At the dinner table he had been unable to resist patting her head, and she had been unable to resist enjoying it. As long as they were teacher and student, however much Kakashi tried to fight it, he knew he'd wind up coddling her. Sakura would wind up allowing it too, because some small part of her still wanted to be taken care of. If she was going to grow, Kakashi knew he had to be away.

So he stayed away. He kept busy, and he avoided his old student, and he waited for the day when the girl he'd had a hand in raising would fight next to him as an equal.

He couldn't wait.

FIN

AUTHOR'S NOTES: To answer a reader's question, I'm writing Guy Might as Guy Might instead of Gai Maito for the same reason I'd write Rock Lee instead of Rokku Rii. I read and watch Naruto in raw Japanese, so I'm basically translating as I go along. If I screw up somehow, please lemmie know; my Japanese is pretty good but it IS still my second language.

_Tachigui_ literally translates as "stand eat" and it's exactly what it sounds like. They are places in Japan with no room where busy businessmen go after work to grab food while waiting for a train.

As ever, any comments, criticisms, corrections and anything else you guys can come up with is welcome. If you love the ending, I'm thrilled. If you hate the ending, please lemmie know why so I can do better with the big wonking epic I'm going to write next.


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